We're celebrating Klordny Week, Superboy!

< you have forgotten something > </kosh>

early May
[Aberrant] While in Calcutta under NSI contract to Novelty Consulting, allegedly to investigate rumors of Teragen infiltration, Slider begins backtracking one of Novelty's middlemen and discovers that he has "orders to cooperate" with at least three elites, including DeVries' Joseph "Pursuer" Simms (known for a public rivalry with Pax). She follows their contact trails and finds they end up in Utopia offices. She learns the fringes of Project Proteus' activities (the experiments on the patients in Bahrain, the doping of adrenocilin with sterilizing drugs, funding of the very groups Utopia is supposed to stop in Kashmir) and, understandably, becomes convinced that she's discovered an "anti-nova" conspiracy. She goes to André Corbin with her suspicions, but he mostly dismisses them as ranting paranoid shite.

For the record, NSI is Nova Services International, the division of Utopia that handles the subcontracting of Utopian novas to outside firms.

At this point, Jennifer doesn't know the name "Project Proteus". All she knows is that people inside Utopia are not just within six degrees of Utopia's enemies, they're giving those enemies their marching orders. Although the novas who work for Proteus would scoff at the notion that they're working for a conspiracy to exterminate their own kind, I for one can't fault Jennifer for reaching the conclusion she did, and I openly scoff at cricharddavies for calling her "a deluded woman on the verge of accepting the Null Manifesto as part of her personal philosophy."

Close to the real world, but far away.

2006
[Aberrant] In the wake of last month's Kashmir atrocity, ongoing tensions in the region erupt into a small-scale war. Nova elites representing India, China and Pakistan fight across the zone, turning it into a blasted ecological nightmare. Project Utopia steps in to stop the fighting, under UN authority, and arrests several of the novas deemed responsible for the disaster.

They were right about conflict in the Muslim world, and about the devastation it would wreak. They simply misjudged how far east it would happen. (Another side effect of the Schroer and Pendleton administrations, and their preference for letting Utopia, rather than the US directly, reshape the Middle East.)

And once again, I almost run out of month.

1922
[Adventure!] Whitley Styles records in his journal that Michael Donighal has called, asking if Whit has had any better luck finding Max Mercer (whom neither of them has seen since the Hammersmith Incident). Whit resolves to catch the next boat to London: "Mrs. Austin will be disappointed, but her jewels can wait."

I've already spoiled the ending of this movie.

1923
[Adventure!] Whitley Styles records in his journal that Max Mercer has returned from Macao, conveniently at a time when the other six Æon founders were in Chicago, and almost the first words out of his mouth were "We're not the police, but we've got to do something with the people we stop." Jake Stefokowski wondered why these Inspired malefactors can't just be turned over to the police; Whit pointed out that most jurisdictions don't actually have laws against building "death rays". Professor Dixon suggested setting up a psychiatric facility; Jack Tallon offered some of his secluded African/Arabian holdings to the purpose. In the end, Mercer agreed to the project: "it's not enough to understand the wonders of our world; we must understand the people who experience them." Max has also suggested that the Æon core membership spend Christmas together.

It may be that this decision led directly to Bahrain. At the very least, it provided precedent.

2001
[Aberrant] The DeVries Agency announces the formation of a new arm, DeVries National Tactical Solutions. While the Agency does not apologize for its role in the Equatorial Wars, it transfers the management of its combat Elites™ to DVNTS.

I'm afraid I don't have much to add to that.

2002
[Aberrant] In the wake of Utopia's being granted oversight of Kashmir, Covert Action News reports on "Utopia's Real Agenda Revisited". The monitoring facilities in Kashmir would allow Utopia to watch India and China — the two largest armies, and largest official nova military forces, on the planet — and the southern parts of the RusCon. The article's author even speculates that Utopia may have manipulated China into taking an interest in Kashmir (which they never had before).

The original article on "Utopia's Real Agenda" appeared in April, but I don't seem to have written an entry about it at the time. *^^* It was to do with the negotiations that led to the London Peace Accord.

Real life intrudes.

1999
[Aberrant] In this week's Newsweek International, General V.P. Malik, chief of the Indian Army staff, insists there was never any possibility of a nuclear confrontation with Pakistan.

Our time line does, or did, have a General V[ed] P[rakash] Malik, and he really did say:

No, it was never an issue. Any possibility of nuclear confrontation was far, far away. Look, we're a responsible nation, and a responsible military force. We understand the thresholds.

The same events that led to that faceoff must have happened in the TU, since the quote is deemed worthy of epigraph status in an Aberrant supplement (I think it was either Aberrant: Project Utopia or Aberrant: Elites). And after all, it wasn't that long after N-Day. The histories were much more similar than they are now.